Keep the Aspidistra Flying

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Summary: A Deeper Side of Orwell
Review: I believe that this novel is Orwell's most personal. It certainly encompasses many of the socialist issues he so vehemently fought for throughout his life. But it also shows a more deeply sentimental side to him that is rarely seen in his other fiction. Gordon's obsessive fight to loosen money's control over him is a battle for independence and artistic freedom. His fight to become independent in the greater society inevitably fails because he cannot ignore that fact that he is a product and part of that society. The scene where he goes to a restaurant in the country with Rosemary is one of the most heartbreaking because it demonstrates the unbreakable bind to society's laws that he feels and the tendency of people to be completely conventional in circumstances where they are trying to be extraordinary. The novel is important because it is a picture of compromised values for the sake of society's morality. The moral sensibility within us is the unkillable Aspidistra. You feel in some ways that Orwell is making a tribute here to the ideals that he has had to sacrifice in order to live a civilised life. The picture is not as bleak as all that. There is room for personal expression and convictions. At least, there certainly was in Orwell's own life if not in Gordon's. It is a short, beautifully written novel that will give you immense pleasure.

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Summary: A review of Keep the Aspidistra Flying
Review: I read Keep the Aspidistra Flying and it is a very, very good book and I liked it and I like George Orwell because he convincingly created the character of Gordon Comstack and it was real because Gordon is such a life like character, (to be honest, he reminds me of me), so read Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

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Summary: What's so great about a "good" job anyways?
Review: I read many of Orwell's works, and I find this far surpasses both 1984 and Animal Farm. This is certainly not a novel about Gordon struggling against poverty, though he is poor that is self inflicted, instead this novel centers around a man's struggle for the freedom that the world of money denies a man. Put simply, Gordon just wants the freedom to be a bum, but even this is not so simple. He has to deal with a family which sees him as their most talented, but also the one wasting his talents. A girlfriend as well that wishes he would take the job at the advertising firm, and also a wealthier friend who enables him to survive through his self inflicted poverty. His failure though is that his poetry is published and he recieves royalties for this, but he then rids himself of the money by getting quite drunk. I guess I shouldn't tell the ending, anyways, this is one of the best books I have ever read with a character that is quite simply fascinating and enigmatic.

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Summary: A feat of brilliance (once again)
Review: I started to read 'Keep the Aspidistra Flying' on christmas day, and found that I had nearly finished it by the end of boxing day. I couldn't put it down! The book takes you through one man's (Gordon Comstock) struggle against the 'Money God' - with whom he began waging war early in his life. You travel with Gordon on his poverty stricken journey of self discovery and, indeed, on his road to maturity. His neglect for the people who care about him (his faitful sister Julia, and devoted partner Rosemary), and neglect for himself do make you angry at times, but this is Orwell's brilliance - the ability to make you feel passionately about things. This book, for me, was an absolutely brilliant read, especially when Orwell takes Rosemary and Gordon out into the country, to Slough - which is only 10 minutes away from my own home village! This book is a 'must' - go and read it!

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Summary: Of Life, Love, Money, And Aspidistras
Review: In a capitalist society, there is no way to escape the rampant worship of money. Or is there? This is the central dilemma of Geore Orwell's Keep The Aspidistra Flying.

Keep The Aspidistra Flying is the story of Gordon Comstock ("common stock"?), an idealistic young man who leaves a respectable middle-class job in an effort to free himself from what he sees as the stultifying greed of bourgeois exsistence. Like that other great English novelist, Charles Dickens, Orwell trots out a varied cast of eccentric characters to keep us entertained as he makes his points. While lacking the history-stopping power of later works such as Animal Farm and 1984, Keep The Aspidistra Flying posseses a dry wit and a heartfelt charm that is all its own. Recommended to idealistic young men (and women) everywhere.

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Summary: Orwell's Best Work
Review: In my opinion, this is Orwell's best work by far. It was the last of his books that I read but also the most enjoyable. It pits the main character in the book (Gordon Comstock) against the capitalist society in which he lives and which is begging him to become a part of it. Although he is talented, he is fighting to get the recognition that he deserves while those around him are making lots of money from their blatantly obvious lack of talent. This book could have been written in any year since and would still accurately portray the times in which we live. Throughout the book I found myself pleading with Gordon not to sell out. But can he afford not to? You'll have to read it to see!

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Summary: The Tedium Of Poverty
Review: It being the 100th anniversary of George Orwell I decided to read one of his books that I hadn't gotten around to yet that was recommend to me a while ago, Keep The Aspidistra Flying. It is a novel about a poet who is trying to live outside the capitalistic system with abysmal results. He vividly describes the tedium and sordidness of middle class poverty, which differs from the equally demoralizing squalid poverty of the common classes.

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Summary: A Neglected Romance with a Satire on English Respectability
Review: It is a bit difficult task to place George Orwell (pen name for Eric Aruthur Blair) in the history of the 20th century English literature. A novelist? A journalist? A critic? Or just a guy who loved propaganda? Whatever it is, he is and will be remembered as the one who wrote "1984" and "Animal Farm." Still, before he wrote these famous works, he wrote a pretty good book of novel, and that is what you're looking at now.

"Keep the Aspidistra Flying" one of the most starange titles you ever see, is about a "poet" (and formerly a copywriter for advertizing company) Gordon Comstock, who, with sudden desire to be free from the curse of money, left this good job and starts the life of an aspiring artist. As he had previously a book of his own poems published (the title "Mice"), and received a review from The Times Literary Supplement, which said "exceptional promise," why not pursue his way as an artist? And his next project "London Pleasure" which must be the next Joyce or Eliot will be completed soon, probably next month, or next year perhaps....

As his misadventure starts, Rosemary, his long-suffering but always faithful sweetheart, naturally is dismayed, and it takes a long time for him to realize that his happiness, whatever it is, is possible with her presence. But aside from the romantic aspect of the novel, which in itself is well-written with good portrait of independent Rosemary, the book attracts us with the author's satire on the middle-classness of England, which is represented by those ugly, die-hard aspidistra decorating the windows of every house. Gordon's loathing of respetability is deftly turned into a dark comedy that attack the parochical mind of some people, sometimes including Gordon himself. For instance, Gordon, no matter how poor and disheveled he becomes, never lets his girlfriend Rosemary pay the check of lunch because, in a word, it is not proper. Those who are interested in Englishness might find something amusing in this book, I assure you.

As is his satire, Orwell's English style is always full of power, brisk and lively, and never lets you bored. The only demerit is, as time has changed since then 1936, some names are no longer familiar to us; once hugely popular novelists like Ethel M Dell is mentioned with derogatory comments from Gordon, and her bestselling novel "The Way of an Eagle" is clearly treated as trash in Orwell's mind, but in the 21st Century whoever read them? Hence, some part of the book is lost on us if you don't know these names like Dell or Hugh Walpole, but never mind. Such part consists only small part, and if you don't get it, just skip it.

At the time of publishing, "Keep the Aspidistra Flying" was never a commercial success, and in Orwell's lifeime it was never reprinted, but these facts should not discuorage you from reading it. It is wickedly funny book that makes you, if not smile, at least grin not a little.

The book was made a movie in 1997 as "The Merry War" starring Richard E Grant and Helena Bohnam Carter. The film, more inclined to romance side of the book, is also a good one. Try it.

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Summary: A must read- George Orwell at his best
Review: Keep the Aspidara flying is a fine piece of literature. It uses beautiful symbolism and is truly great read in combination with 1984 for the two together will give you a whole picture of who George Orwell was and what he stood for. It is about the flaws of capitalism and deals with the tradgedy of poverty and how even when money is achieved the results can leave us worse off. This book is not hard to read at all. Even the symbolism is easy to understand and would be great for an English class introducing students to the use of symbolism. It reads easily and you won't want to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, if a little self-indulgent
Review: Keep the Aspidistra Flying is a slow book, without the sort inventive thrill that I associate with Animal Farm, 1984, or even Down And Out. But in the slowness, Orwell displays a sort of human honesty, making this read more like a journal than a novel, if journals could be written from a third-person perspective. It was readable - occasionally stunningly beautiful, occasionally mind-numbingly frustrating.

The characters and the story here are sparse. The book centers on one character (Gordon), in one struggle (to be poor), sometimes inching forward, though generally losing.

I'll say right here that whatever Orwell's social and political inclinations, I did not see this as a statement on socialism, or even as a satire. What I did see was a book about the honor and futility of experimenting with poverty, about the difficulties extricating not only your actions but your judgements as well from the frame of reference you have grown up embracing,

So, as a novel about the sinking of Gordon Comstock, its not a particularly enlightening read. What turns it around is the other side of the story, the fact that Gordon Comstock, and all of us, and aspidistras, have a tendancy to rise, not to sink. The best moments in the book, and the moments that I think really give it meaning are when Gordon is thrashing around between floating and sinking, between his aspidistral clinging to dignity and his deeply held social conviction that dignity is a sham.

Orwell is, of course, a great writer, and this book is no exception. He writes clearly, and with an engagement to the reader. It was certainly well worth reading, though for me, it was a notch or two below other Orewell works I've read.